Our world has an unhealthy obsession with violence. Be it sport, war, crime, tragedy or self-destruction. The
language around sport, the bring back the biff and the brother against brother,
mate against mate tag lines of sport promotion speaks all about the violence
inherent in physical conflict.
Violence sneaks into our language
without us knowing. Suddenly we are 'doing battle'; we no longer say we don't
like something, we hate it; to get fit we go to a boot camp; we are not going
to simply win, but we are going to 'smash' them, and much more.
James Hillman suggests by the
title of his little book that we have 'A Terrible Love of War'. He suggests we
are hardwired for conflict as a means of individual and corporate identity and
an affirmation that there is something worthy enough, great enough, big enough
to die for. C. S Lewis, the writer of Narnia, took it for granted that war was
with us forever and could not understand the position of pacifists or those
advocating non-violence. He believed war was inevitable, and sometimes
necessary. He suggested the primary purpose of war was to remind us we are
destined to die.
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